This is a familiar and well-used introduction, usually from a non-birder to a birder. It is slightly preferable to “What are you looking at?” Often folk are just curious as to why someone might be standing in a meadow, binoculars around their neck, looking up at the sky with a microphone next to them. It’s a fair question. However, explaining the intricacies of recording visible migration is often beyond the limits of my patience, so I usually just say “yes“.
On this occasion, the person making inquiries wanted some help identifying a bird that they had seen. My heart sank a little. This might not be a quick interaction and more importantly, our conversation might drown out the flight calls of Hawfinches passing overhead. Then suddenly I became much more interested:
“It was a large white bird, bigger than a Kestrel, floating low over the meadow in the very last of the light, occasionally dropping down, then rising up again“
It was a perfect description of a Barn Owl hunting. Barn Owls are very rare up here. Isaac West and I sounded recorded one calling when we were out listening for Common Scoters in the spring of 2021. We never saw that bird and it has remained the sole Lye Valley area record over the last six years. I was intrigued by the dog-walker’s report, even though the bird was only seen once, and that was several days ago.
On Thursday evening, I visited Warneford Meadow as the light was fading. By 5pm it was dark and I was just about to return, when a ghostly pale shape floated across the meadow in front of me: Barn Owl! I took some video of the owl hunting, the lights of the Churchill Hospital bright in the background:
I watched the Barn Owl hunting for about 20 very special minutes, amazed that it had found this small area of meadow in urban Oxford, completely surrounded by housing and hospitals.
This was my 700th visit to the Lye Valley area, and Barn Owl is the 81st species that I have recorded here this year. The illustrated list of all 112 species recorded in the Lye Valley area is here.
With overhead migration calming down (in fact grinding to halt, there was none this morning) it feels as if we are moving into winter proper. The solid grey skies of the last week, and the terrible news from the American election results today, added to the slightly flat feel. But there were thrushes. Fieldfares are regular winter visitors to urban Oxford, but are nearly always seen, and heard, flying over. On a couple of occasions in the last six years, Fieldfares have come down to feed on berry trees, but believe it or not, this is the first time that I’ve seen one on the ground here:
I was quite pleased and assumed that this was probably going to be the highlight from today’s patch visit. The Fieldfares had joined about 15 Redwings that were feeding in rowan trees on the golf course. Their presence was driving the local Mistle Thrushes into a fury, their alarm calls were angrily ringing all around. I scanned through the trees, counting thrush numbers until I was brought to a halt by the rear end of a bird, perched at the back of the tree. The short tail, the long white wing-bar, framed by dark primaries below it and an evenly brown back above it, could only mean one thing: there was a Hawfinch in the tree in front of me. In Oxford city!
Having recorded a pair of flyover Hawfinch last week, I was on the alert for further flyovers, but had not dreamt that I would find a feeding bird, perched up on my patch. This was a fantastic moment!
Trying not to move in case I disturbed it, yet wanting a slightly better view, I shuffled a little to my left. This gave me decent binocular views of most of the bird, including the massive bill, orange head and black eye mask. The light was terrible, which meant that the photos were too, but the key features can be seen:
The Hawfinch fed for a few more seconds, doing it’s best Waxwing impression by appearing to take rowan berries from the tree:
And then, typically for this species, it simply disappeared into thin air. I scanned through the tree numerous times and eventually circled the tree, but saw or heard no further sign of this fabulous species. How many more Hawfinches are out there? Will there be more?! At the moment, it feels like the sky is the limit as to what may turn up next, expectation levels are dangerously high!
No-one was more ready for a Hawfinch flyover than me. I had refreshed my search image of flying birds and I had listened to recordings of flight calls on a daily basis.
Search image: chunky, short-tailed, big-headed, with a huge translucent wingbar (picture from the last big irruption, winter 2017/18).
I had also refined my flight call sound recording technique, positioning my recorder with the microphone pointing straight up, a meter or so from where I stood, watching the sky. This enabled me to review interesting flight calls and capture the important ones. And still they nearly got past me.
I had been out watching and listening to bird migration for the first hour of light pretty much every day for the last week. Reports of Hawfinches passing over local sites kept me motivated, but after a combined total of about eight hours of watching I was beginning to wonder if any were ever going fly over this small, green patch of urban Oxford.
At 7:15am on Tuesday 30th October, after about half an hour of watching and listening to light overhead bird migration, I heard a series of sharp, high-pitched flight calls, from above and almost behind me. They sounded a bit like a Meadow Pipit calling whilst 1,000 volts were being passed through it. Or more accurately, a repeated high-pitched “tsick“.
I whirled around and just got onto the source of the calls: two large, short-tailed finches that flew low and fast away from me, disappearing over the trees on Hill Top Road, to the west. No real plumage details could be made out but all my instincts were that those birds were probably Hawfinches. Now it was down to the sound recorder to confirm the identification.
Fortunately, my recorder had picked up the flight calls, even over the sounds of a local dog walker passing by and the banging of building work at the Warneford Hospital site. The calls are classic Hawfinch flight calls, an inverted v-shaped call at the 7-9 kHz range. Typical Hawfinch, completely distinctive, yet somehow easy to overlook.
The last big Hawfinch year, the winter of 2017/18, was just before I began regularly watching the Lye Valley area. Phil Barnett found a small flock of Hawfinches in the Lye Valley woods in February 2018. I wondered how it would ever be possible to see this elusive species here again? Fortunately, this year’s irruption of Hawfinches from continental Europe has provided just that opportunity. Species number 111 for the Lye Valley bird list and for me!
A quieter week on Shetland this year, dominated by cold north-westerly winds and regular rain. Andy Last and I based ourselves at Wethersta on Mainland, having stayed on Unst for the last couple of years, and went slightly later in the year, arriving on 8th October, to mix things up a bit.
In terms of species seen it was a rather front-loaded week, with some good birds in the first few days. In the second half of our stay, the winds swung around to the south-west and we hardly saw a migrant bird. It was quite tough going. Our total of 83 species on Shetland in a week is our lowest by some distance and reflects the lack of common migrants. What was more surprising was the lack of birders that we encountered. It was nice to bump into Roger Wyatt, Jim Hutchins and Ewan Urquhart at various points, but on a daily basis we hardly saw anyone all week!
Warbler Wonderland
The main focus of our efforts was finding migrant landbirds. We spent time, much time, looking at trees. Some we seemed to get to know on an individual basis.
Andy, communing with the trees at KergordSiberian Chiffchaff by Andy
There were a few Barred Warblers about. This bird was at Cullivoe on Yell:
The huge dump of Yellow-browed Warblers that occurred in late-September had mostly moved through by the time that we arrived. This Yellow-browed Warbler was at Valyie on Unst:
Yellow-browed Warblers often provide the sound of Shetland in autumn. This calling bird was at Kergord:
There was a nice selection of phylloscopus warblers present. This Arctic Warbler was in the Burn of Njugalswater, near Lerwick:
This Greenish Warbler was in the sycamores behind the house at Valyie on Unst:
It was great to hear the Greenish Warbler calling:
But the best of all the phylloscopus warblers, and in my mind one of the best birds of all, was the Pallas’s Warbler at Swining. Feeding low down, and calling occasionally, this bird displayed all of its fabulous features: the crown stripe and bright yellow supercillia, the double wing bars and the lemon-yellow rump. All packed into a tiny green and white phylloscopus gem:
Show me the stripes!
When you see a Pallas’s Warbler this well, you know that you’ve had a good autumn:
Not all of the warblers that we saw were green, white and stripey. I was scanning through the crop field at Valyie on Unst, when an unstreaked acrocephalus warbler began bounding through the crop towards me. Having spent a full eight hours trying to pin down the identification of what turned out to be a very elusive Blyth’s Reed Warbler in the very same field in 2022, it felt like history was repeating itself in front of me. However, this bird had a blindingly white throat, a dark crown, a short bill and a long primary projection: it was the Paddyfield Warbler that was last reported three days previously:
Paddyfield Warbler by Andy
In statistical terms, the rarest warbler that we saw was the candidate Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat, halimodendri, at Hunter’s Wood on Unst. We had the pleasure of bumping into Dave Cooper here, who played us his recording of the remarkable tit-like call of this bird.
Shetland is surrounded by sea and we did not entirely neglect the ocean. Below, sea-watching from Eshaness in a freezing sub-zero north-westerly. A constant stream of some 400 Northern Fulmars passed north, 3 Sooty Shearwaters were the highlight:
The sea and me.
This adult Great Northern Diver was in the bay at Scousborough. It is moulting out of summer plumage. The bill is also in a transitional state between the black of summer and the grey of winter:
No visit to Shetland would be complete without a picture of a distant vagrant seaduck. This year’s “spot-the-bird” picture involves many Common Eider and a single drake White-winged Scoter, all the way from north-western North America:
“Dude, the whole sky is red and green!”
The phenomenon that will live the longest in the memory, was the aurora borealis on Thursday 10th October. Aware that solar activity was peaking, Andy stepped outside just before 8pm and walked into the remnants of a huge solar storm. As the charged particles from a Coronal Mass Ejection Event funneled into the earth’s magnetic field, they collided with oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere, making them glow green and red.
Andy ran back into the house, shouting the immortal words “Dude, the whole sky is red and green!” I ran outside and nearly fell over. A incredible aurora was playing out above our heads. The colours were clear to the naked eye and intense. A huge red bridge spanned the sky from the northern horizon to the south. Either side of the red bridge, the sky was glowing green:
Aurora Borealis above our accommodation in Wethersta
We staggered around, mouths open. As we watched, the colours changed and moved, but red remained dominant:
The apex of the red bridge, directly above us, a vortex of swirling red
Having always assumed that the colours in photographs of the aurora were exaggerated by the camera, it was astounding to see such colours with the naked eye. It was a truly incredible experience and only ended when the sky clouded over, but will be remembered forever.
Our eBird trip report of everything that we saw on Shetland, plus some birding near Aberdeen on the way north, is here.
Today was a truly fateful day. Seeing me about the leave the house to begin local patch visit number 684, my 12-year-old daughter asked me, “Daddy, what do you hope to see today?” I didn’t think, the words “Yellow-browed Warbler” seemed obvious. “It’s a rare bird in Oxfordshire but there have been lots on the east coast and one or two might stop off inland. But I’ll take anything.”
Once out in Warneford Meadow, the overhead migration was obvious. Not huge numbers of birds, but first light saw Redwings and a few Meadow Pipits and Eurasian Skylarks flying overhead, beneath a light cover of cloud. As the cloud broke up and was replaced by blue skies and sunshine, Barn Swallows started moving. Nearly everything was heading south-west.
I checked the bushes around the meadow and then crossed the golf course. The large areas of scrub near the public footpath can attract migrant birds, but nothing prepared me for when I found myself very briefly locking eyes with what I felt sure was a Marsh Tit. There has been only one previous record of Marsh Tit in the last six years, this was not a bird that I wanted to let go. A few nervous minutes passed before it appeared again, this time giving great views for a few seconds in the scrub. Just like the first record, this Marsh Tit was very mobile, looking like a migrant passing through.
Chasing 40
Delighted with what was already a superb morning, I continued onwards, checking the Lye Valley woods, where a Eurasian Treecreeper was calling, and Churchill Meadow. By the time I was at the top of the Lye Valley, I had recorded 39 species, my best total of the year so far. But I also noted that I had been let down by some common species that I record on most patch visits: Blackcap, Stock Dove, European Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gull, in particular. With early morning gull movement over and Blackcaps becoming much less common by early October, I figured my best chance to get to 40 species today would be to walk back towards Warneford Meadow to try to add Stock Dove to the day list. For only the second time ever, I turned around and walked back across my patch and past the Churchill Hospital. How fate hangs on these small decisions.
A flock of 4 Great Cormorants passed overhead, taking me to 40 species for the visit and justifying my retraced steps. The small Boundary Brook valley is full of elder trees. Stock Doves sometimes perch up here, warming themselves in the early morning sun. I paused on the footpath by the hospital, scanning the elder trees. A small flock of Western House Martins flew over, and the first Eurasian Siskins of the year passed overhead, calling.
There is a movement in a nearby willow tree. It is a warbler. “That looks small,” I think to myself and I raise my binoculars:
The huge supercilium and the double wing bars that adorn this tiny green and white warbler, nearly knock me off my feet. “Yellow-browed Warbler!” my brain screams, as a wave of adrenaline washes over me. I fire off a few pictures as the bird pauses on the edge of the willow, a tiny visitor from Siberia:
The Lye Valley’s first-ever Yellow-browed Warbler then flies into the denser cover of the valley. Despite the intense levels of adrenaline, I start recording bird calls, just in case it calls. Fortunately, it does:
A few minutes later the Yellow-browed Warbler flies back to the willow tree where I first saw it, before returning again to the cover of the valley. I wait another fifteen minutes, but see or hear no further sign of the bird. I use this time to put the news out on the local Whatsapp group. Unfortuntely I did not see Stock Dove, but 43 species in a couple of hours in Headington is a fine haul.
Dream patch find
Yellow-browed Warbler is a dream patch find. Rare enough in the county to attract interest, but common enough nationally to be a viable target for local patch watchers. This was the first Yellow-browed Warbler in Oxfordshire this year and about the 26th ever, as per the county annual reports. The recent increase in records of this species is obvious:
In other times, I would have spent the rest of today drunk on champagne, celebrating a superb patch find. These days, I’ll just be smiling all weekend. After all, there is always tomorrow morning.
Google Translate version of the Falsterbo Bird Observatory blog from 9th September 2024, Swedish to English:
“Finally, a change of weather! The last time has been a bit stressful. Day after day of sunny and very hot. The wind has been steadily blowing from the cheese sector. In the morning sometimes reasonably weak, but then usually increasing to become healthy towards lunchtime.From Nabben, the counters have recorded fewer than 1,000 birds for several days in a row. It’s probably some kind of record low. Unfortunately, we have several groups of foreign visitors here right now. They get the wrong impression, as there are very few birds to see”
The confusion between the Swedish word for east (öster) and cheese (ost) produces a splendid mistranslation here. But this apart, spare a thought for those poor Falsterbo bird counters. Barely 1,000 migrating birds a day, producing record low numbers of migrating birds when the wind is in the east/cheese. For those of us with inland local patches in the UK, where nowhere near 1,000 migrating birds a year are seen, these record-low numbers still seem incredibly high. Context is everything.
Wanting to experience bird migration with an eastern flavour and on a greater scale than that which we usually see in the UK, Ben Sheldon and I arranged to visit Falsterbo Bird Observatory, at the very southern tip of Sweden. Ben knows Sweden well and despite denying that he is fluent in the language, he can happily chat away in Swedish, he knows all the bird names plus the slang name for Montagu’s/Pallid Harrier (Stängshök – a contraction of Stäpphök and Ängshök). Raptors are a particular attraction at Falsterbo. Last year Ben visited Falsterbo and saw fourteen species of raptor in a day, including all four species of Harrier within thirty minutes.
The week before saw a record-breaking 11,750 Tree Pipits recorded in a single day, with a nice backup cast of Citrine Wagtail, Ortolan Bunting and over 150 Honey Buzzards. We were not expecting those numbers to be repeated, but we hoped for some decent raptor and passerine migration. But then disaster: the wind turned to the east.
Easterly winds in September are high on the wish list of many birders in the UK, particularly those on the east coast. Migrating birds, on land and sea, are often pushed towards our shores from continental Europe, sometimes resulting in high counts or records of unusual birds. However, easterly winds do not bring joy to the birders at Falsterbo. What they want are light south-westerly winds. In these conditions, migration can be truly spectacular. Easterly winds hold up migration in southern Sweden, the stronger the wind, the more of a barrier it presents. Our first full day, Friday 6th September, was a hot 28 degrees, with strongly gusting easterly winds. Bird migration effectively ground to a halt.
We stayed at Falsterbo Bird Observatory, which provides self-catering youth hostel-style accommodation:
From the Observatory it is a 25-minute walk, or a 5-minute drive, towards the end of the peninsular. The watchpoint of Nabben is the base for the official bird counters and a pre-dawn gathering place for visiting birders. The counters start before dawn and are allocated different species to count. Even before the sun rises, the dominant species of Western Yellow Wagtail and Tree Pipit pass overhead, calling constantly.
A Nabben watchpoint sunrise selfie (TB left, Ben, right).
There is a large pool with wide muddy margins opposite the Nabben watchpoint. This area attracts many waders:
Common GreenshankPied Avocet
Over the sea, a Caspian Gull flew north and two Black-throated Divers, in fine summer plumage, migrated south:
Standing and listening
Eurasian Sparrowhawk migration was immediately obvious, with a regular stream of low-flying birds heading south down the peninsular all weekend:
Falsterbo is famous for its pipit and wagtail migration and even on a quiet day the calls of Western Yellow Wagtail (presumably mostly thunbergii) and Tree Pipit are constant. This one was screaming to make itself heard above a passing aircraft:
We recorded nearly 150Tree Pipits during our two-and-a-half days at Falsterbo. Whilst this would be a huge number by UK standards, by Falsterbo standards it was positively dead. Our 150 Tree Pipits were barely 1% of the 11,750 Tree Pipits recorded on the previous Tuesday: a 99% decrease in migrating Tree Pipit numbers! But even 1% of the peak Falsterbo migration is still greater than the number of birds recorded at most UK sites and it is always a joy to see and hear Tree Pipits:
We enjoyed birding next to the Lighthouse, at Falsterbo fyr. We spent several hours watching visible migration here and were joined by Liam Langley, his friend Vicktor and Richard Hall on Sunday morning.
The trees in the lighthouse garden provided shelter from the easterly wind, allowing us to hear flight calls more clearly. The trade-off was that this sheltered spot, filled with warm-blooded humans, provided the perfect feeding station for early morning biting insects. I had the novel experience of sustaining multiple mosquito bites through my long-sleeved shirt. Migration highlights here included a fly-by Wood Sandpiper, a few Western Marsh Harriers, an Osprey and a Red-necked Grebe over the sea, plus a Common Cuckoo, a Common Reed Bunting and the usual overhead stream of WesternYellow Wagtails and Tree Pipits.
Ben “no liquid, except coffee, shall pass my lips in daylight hours” Sheldon kept me well supplied with coffee. Here he pours out the holy liquid in the pre-dawn light, next to Falsterbo lighthouse.
Show me the honey!
Having spent the mornings watching and hearing gentle passerine migration, including 10 Common Crossbills over Kolabacken, we would then move the short distance to the large open heath at Skanörs Ljung. This is a well-known raptor watchpoint and we were joined by Ray Scally, who was also staying at the Observatory over the weekend. We spent a total of 7.5 hours here and eventually saw eleven species of raptor, but it was hard going. After standing for so long, we found ourselves throwing envious glances at those that had the foresight to bring portable chairs:
Chair envy at Skanörs Ljung
Finally, we saw some Honey Buzzard passage. Few sane adult Honey Buzzards were going anywhere in those winds. They were probably hunkered down in woodlands across southern Scandinavia digging out wasp nests, waiting for a nice south-westerly airflow. The few Honey Buzzards that we saw were all juveniles, with the vast majority being dark birds:
Dark juvenile Honey Buzzards over Skanörs Ljung
In some ways, this plumage most resembles Common Buzzard, although structurally they appear very different. This composite image from the weekend shows some typical Honey Buzzard shapes:
The long head and neck stand out, as do the long tail and bulging secondaries. We eventually had a close approach from this gorgeous pale juvenile Honey Buzzard:
Ben skilfully picked out a trio of Black Kites from one kettle of soaring raptors:
Juvenile Black KiteJuvenile Eurasian Hobby
Other raptors we saw here included Osprey, Western Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Red Kite, White-tailed Eagle, Common Buzzard and Common Kestrel.
Birding The Bridge
We also explored Lilla Hammars näs, just to the north of the Falsterbo peninsular. This headland holds a large waterbird roost at high tide. We parked at the end of the wonderfully named Kumliens väg…
… before walking out to the headland, where thousands of waders, a huge gathering of over 600 Mute Swans, plus various other waterbirds including 12 Great White Egrets were all seen.
Lilla Hammers näs provided good views towards the Øresund Bridge. This 15 km-long structure links Sweden to Denmark. It’s a pretty special drive over the bridge, especially when the road leaves the bridge and descends into a tunnel under the sea, via an artificial island. But it is not a cheap drive. The full price bridge toll is 673 Swedish Krona, or £50, each way. We finished the weekend in Denmark, birding a wetland site near the airport, shamelessly padding out our Danish lists on eBird.
Western Marsh Harrier and the Øresund BridgeEuropean Golden Plover
It is always something of a risk visiting a migration watchpoint, you are at the mercy of the winds and the weather. We were unlucky to visit Falsterbo during a period of strong easterly winds, which temporarily held up much bird migration. But the great thing about Falsterbo is that even when it is operating at only 1% of its potential, it is still a fabulous place to witness bird migration. Our next mission: to return in weather more conducive to bird migration to experience Falsterbo at something nearer 100%.
The eBird trip list for the weekend can be found here.
Good weather to find migrating birds inland, is not good weather. The wind must swing around to the compass’s cooler side, ideally the east or north-east. The clouds need to roll in and frequent showers help ground birds that would otherwise pass high overhead, undetected. Good weather for cycling is rather different. Light winds, moderate to warm temperatures and dry roads are the cyclist’s dream. So, if you want to find lots of good birds by bike in Oxfordshire, you need to be prepared to brave the elements. Or see nothing.
I am very experienced at seeing nothing. I did Big Days in 2017 and 2018 that saw glorious, hot sunny days with blue skies, but with precious few birds. We crawled to a total of 104 species in 2017 and 106 species in 2018.
Ben Sheldon, Thomas Miller and I first discussed doing an Oxfordshire Big Day early in 2023. This Big Day would be different. We would not use a car, but would rather see how many species of bird we could record in Oxfordshire, just using our bikes. Unfortunately, I was unavailable at a family wedding on the best date that they could both make in late April 2023. Ben and Thomas spent a full day in the field and saw an incredible 112 species as a team, all by bike. This was only just short of the all-time record of 117 species, set by Wayne Paes, Tom Wickens and Manoj Noir on 9th May 2021. We were sure that the record could be broken by a team using just bikes, providing the weather cooperated. We agreed to set aside the weekend of April 27th and 28th for our 2024 Big Day attempt and would make a decision on which day to use based on the weather forecast.
The forecast leading up to the weekend changed on a daily basis. Like most of the spring of 2024, it would be cool to cold. The winds were forecast to swing around to the north-east on Friday evening. Cloud cover was guaranteed. And there would be rain. How much rain was forecast seemed to vary between the different weather forecasts. All agreed there that would some light rain at first on Saturday, but that Sunday morning would be dominated by a heavy band of rain. We agreed Saturday looked best and made plans for a Big Day on Saturday 27th April. Then on Friday night, the forecast changed, predicting a very wet end of the day, as well as the beginning. We gritted our teeth and decided to stick with Saturday. Sunday looked even worse.
I opened my front door at 04:15am on Saturday morning. The petrichor was strong in my nostrils, and it was beginning to drizzle. I could smell the rain. I cycled down to The Plain roundabout, at the bottom of the High Street in Oxford, and met up with Ben and Thomas. At just after 4:30am we began the hour-long ride out to the Chilterns. The rain caught us before we had left Oxford. By the time we passed Stadhampton, some 10km/6 miles from Oxford, we all had soaking wet feet. I had hoped that the moment that I became soaked through would happen much later in the day than this. By the time we began the long hill up past Watlington and onto the Chiltern escarpment, we were all drenched and the temperature was only just above freezing.
Watlington Hill is a well-known climb amongst local cyclists. The first section is quite steep and favours the stronger, lighter riders. Everyone goes up it at their own pace. Thomas led the way, being a strong cyclist and a good climber, I followed next, followed by Ben, laden with a rucksack containing a small scope. There is always a nice feeling of satisfaction on completing the climb. Thomas and I waited at the top and Ben cycled up towards us, but with some horrifying news. Halfway up the hill, a Long-eared Owl had flown across the road in front of him. Climbing Watlington Hill in the pitch dark and freezing rain is painful enough. To miss what could be the bird of the day, and so early in our Big Day attempt, was excruciating. As all three of us had not seen the owl, we could not count it in our team total. Things went from bad to worse, as our first stop, for a scarce local breeding bird, was a failure and we did not see or hear it. Things then went from worse to downright dangerous. On top of the Chiltern escarpment, the cold north-easterly wind was strong, chilling our wet bodies to the bone. I have never felt so cold and so wet on a bike.
We cycled to Cowlease Wood to get some woodland species at dawn, but by the time we arrived, Thomas was going hypothermic. He was shaking like a leaf and was unable to use his hands to change from cycling to walking shoes. Ben had an emergency down jacket in his backpack and gave it to Thomas to try to raise his body temperature. Hypothermia commonly causes impaired cognitive function. I could tell that Thomas was beginning to lose it, because a short while later he said that he thought he had heard a Redpoll flight call.
We began birding, whilst I tried to keep the thoughts of hypothermia from my mind. I tried to use eBird to record the species that we saw, but I could not feel or use my fingers. Birding was also made difficult by the sheer number of Firecrests singing. This species has dramatically increased in the county over the last twenty years. It was hard to hear anything behind the curtain of constant Firecrest song. Then Ben said “Redpoll!” Was he going hypothermic too? I tried to blank out the high-pitched screaming from the Firecrests and there, in a rare quiet moment, was a classic Redpoll trill. A singing male Lesser Redpoll, and even better, a flyover Siskin too. Two species that we had not anticipated recording in late April. Singing Mistle Thrush, Nuthatch and Treecreeper also added three species onto our list that can be tricky on Big Days. As it turned out, we found at least 10 Lesser Redpolls in the woods, including several singing males.
We cycled back to our scarce local breeder, who finally showed itself and then we began the ride to the Oxon Downs in the south of the county. The rain had stopped, the cycling warmed us up and we were seeing birds. What could possibly go wrong?
Despite smashing into a submerged pothole and puncturing my front tyre, our visit to the Downs was productive. There are not many pairs of Stonechat or Meadow Pipit breeding in the county and a Tree Pipit was a real quality bonus, as was a Wheatear and a flyover Cuckoo. However, our misses here balanced out the positives. Despite much scanning of an appropriate area, we could not pick out a Stone Curlew and we did not see Grey Partridge either. We met up with Tom Wickens, who had provided us with much invaluable information beforehand, was doing his own personal Big Day by bike and was carrying his own ‘scope. Incredibly, he was braving the sub-zero windchill and regular rain showers in shorts:
From the Downs we headed back into the flatlands and visited Appleford Gravel Pits. Open water brought a rapid increase in our trip list with a few Swifts and all the hirundines present, plus Little Grebe and our only Grey Wagtail of the day. A flooded field between Didcot and Abingdon looked superb and produced our first waders of the day: 3 Little Ringed Plovers, a Green Sandpiper and a first-summer Ringed Plover, expertly picked out by Ben and Thomas. A fine male Yellow Wagtail took us to #84 species, just after midday.
Then there was the second-longest ride of the day, to Farmoor Reservoir, where news had reached us of Little Gull and Arctic Tern passage. Sure enough, both species were on F1, three fabulous summer-plumaged adult Little Gulls and at least 2 Arctic Terns, both great species to pick up on a Big Day:
The café at Farmoor provided much-needed hot food and coffee, before we walked over to the Pinkhill hide and the River Thames. 4 Common Sandpipers were on the bank of F1 and 2 Snow Geese flew over, a feral surprise. There were no Kingfishers visible from the hide, but one was calling and briefly glimpsed on the Thames, our only Kingfisher of the day. A singing Garden Warbler at Pinkhilll was species #93, as we left Farmoor for Wytham Woods. Could we get to Otmoor with 100 species already seen? If so, we knew we would be on course for a great day total.
Despite it being after 2pm we had not seen or heard a Green Woodpecker, so it was a relief to hear one yaffling at Wytham, where Marsh Tit and Little Egret were also added.
We skirted around the north part of Port Meadow, but failed to pick up any Cattle Egrets, despite some being present all week. We met Adam Hartley at the Port Meadow floods, in a very efficient five-minute stop where we added 2 Great White Egrets, Shelduck and our only 2 Dunlin of the day.
2 Ring-necked Parakeets in Marston Meadows became species #100, as we began the cycle ride out to our final destination: Otmoor. We were on target.
We started on the Oddington side, scanning the flood field for waders, ducks and gulls. I had become aware that it was very reassuring to have one of the country’s leading gull identification experts with you on a Big Day. If there was anything slightly white-headed or immature in the gull department, we just pointed Thomas Miller at it and waited for an identification to come out. So, I was completely shocked when, as he scanned the Otmoor floods, he declared “What sort of gull is that?!” I was flabbergasted. It must be NEW TO SCIENCE! Further examination revealed a first-summer Black-headed Gull, half a mile away, with the sun behind it and mostly hidden in vegetation. These amateurs, eh?
The flood field was very productive. Wigeon and Pintail were new ducks; Grey Plover, Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit and Redshank were new waders. An unringed Eurasian Crane was present and there was a Barn Owl perched in a hedge.
By 7pm we were on the Otmoor bridleway, having seen 108 species, more than either of my car-based Big Days. We were now trying to get as many species on the list before a heavy band of rain moved in and dampened down bird activity. We saw the Otmoor Barnacle Goose, finally connected with a calling Bullfinch, before a Peregrine became species#111. We walked up to the screens and added Pochard, a booming Bittern and a Marsh Harrier. It took a while, but eventually we heard a squealing Water Rail and at least 2 Grasshopper Warblers began reeling in the carpark field.
As the light went and the rain started we were on 116 species, including two species of feral geese (Snow and Barnacle) and an unringed Eurasian Crane. We had not heard or seen a Snipe yet, so walked back towards the Wetlands Watch hide. Eventually, in little light, we heard a Snipe singing, and then one drumming too. This species took us level with the 2021 record total of 117 species. Then a superb end-of-day magical moment was provided by Thomas finding a Short-eared Owl quartering The Closes. Species #118 for the day, the most species seen in a day in Oxfordshire and all recorded by bike and on foot!
Could we go further? In total darkness and pouring rain, the day ended as it had begun. We cycled back into Oxford in the rain. We gave the Lye Valley Tawny Owls a few minutes to call, but it was always a long-shot in the heavy rain. We finished, tired but very happy after 142km/92 miles cycled and some 16km/10 miles walked, on 118 species. With Ben’s Long-eared Owl flypast and Tom Wickens hearing a Tawny Owl on the way home, 120 species were recorded in Oxfordshire on 27th April 2024 by just the four of us, using only bikes.
One of these men is not called Tom, but between them they have seen 120 species in Oxfordshire in day. Left-to-right: Ben Sheldon, Tom Bedford, Tom Miller & Tom Wickens. Otmoor at dusk, 27th April 2024.
For comparison, a combined across-county effort by birders in neighbouring Buckinghamshire on the same day, produced 124 species, only four more species than our small group of bike-powered birders in Oxfordshire. We did not see Cattle Egret, Red-crested Pochard, Stone Curlew, Grey Partridge, Hobby, Sparrowhawk, Redstart or Whinchat in our total, so there is still scope for the record to be extended. If the record is broken again, those involved may have to endure similar weather. May they suffer less than we did!
Many thanks to everyone who helped us out with information and scouting, both before and during the Big Day, and the support from the local birding community. Ben has helpfully provided the list for the day:
(Well spotted, Linnet does appear twice on this list! One of the entries should read “Jackdaw”, so the overall total is not affected)
I began exploring the Lye Valley area in early 2019, following a serious running injury, which meant that my first few visits were on crutches. The Lye Valley area is an eclectic mix of habitats, containing what was “Oxfordshire’s first lunatic asylum“, a WWII hospital, a golf course and an 8,000-year-old alkaline fen with Special Scientific Status. These are not typical habitats for finding a variety of birds and there was no open water, but the position of the Lye Valley area, in an elevated location on the edge of a small escarpement overlooking east Oxford and the River Thames, meant that some migrant birds might be found too.
With regular coverage, a surpringsingly diverse selcetion of bird species were recorded, including the first county scarcity, a Pied Flycatcher, found in August 2019 with Dave Lowe. This new booklet, published by the Oxford Ornithological Society, describes the birds found in this green corner of urban east Oxford over the period 2019-2023.
Here is a little preview of this new report:
This new booklet uses data from over 800 eBird checklists submitted during the 2019-2023 period to describe the occurrence, arrival/departure dates and high counts of local breeding birds. As hoped, this green area surrounded by housing and hospitals also attracted a variety of migrant birds. Through their migration routes, these birds connect urban east Oxford to sub-Saharan Africa in the south and to the Arctic tundra in the north. The Birds of the Lye Valley Area draws all these bird records together, beautifully illustrated by the author’s photographs. Or so he tells us. Order a copy today! This bird report is a not-for-profit publication, any surplus funds raised from sales will go to the Oxford Ornithological Society.
Having equalled my all-time total of 81 bird species recorded in the Lye Valley area of Headington in 2022, what would 2023 bring? This area (the Lye Valley LNR, Southfield Golf Course, Warneford Meadow and the Boundary Brook Wildlife Corridor) is surrounded by the housing of east Oxford and has the Old Road Campus and the Churchill Hospital within it. I have had an MRI scan and COVID-19 vaccinations on my local patch, bringing new meaning to the concept of total birding.
January 1st 2023 could have hardly begun any better: 40 species recorded, my best on this date, and a new species for the area – Firecrest – all in the first couple of hours of light. The checklist is here. That the first visit produced 45% of all the bird species that would be recorded in the whole year says much about the variety of urban birding and the patience needed. That first day also saw a flyover Skylark and a wintering Chiffchaff, neither guaranteed in January:
A bitterly cold spell in the second-half of January, covered the local Moorhens in ice…
… but brought in some common winter birds, such as Redwings:
There were also uncommon visitors. The second Common Gull ever flew over, and a Snipe was seen on several visits. January 23rd was a Lapwing day, with 58 flying south in small flocks:
There then followed a superb burst of good birds. Steve Sansom glimpsed a Water Rail on 24th, and I managed to relocate it the following morning, the first for the Lye Valley area:
Two Goosander flew over on the 28th, yet another second-ever record here, one of the themes of the year. This brought the January total to 55 species, and already 63% of the total number of species for the year had been recorded:
February was much quieter, but more new species for the year were added in March, with a flyover flock of Golden Plover on 8th and the beginning of waterbird migration which saw Canada Geese and Cormorants overhead and this Little Egret on the golf course:
And there were Grey Herons, both adults and young birds:
1st April saw the first trans-Saharan migrant arrive, a Willow Warbler, but the spring of 2023 turned out to be desperately quiet, with the only bird of note being a Brambling on April 17th:
Local breeders were all that I had to show for near-daily effort between mid-March and early May:
2023 was a good year for Garden Warblers, with one pair probably breeding:
It was superb to be able to hear Garden Warbler song on most visits between early May and early June:
With the addition of the common Warblers, Swift and Hobby, the year list stood at 74 species by 31st May, the highest total ever reached by this date. This total included the second patch record of Egyptian Geese, as a pair spent a long weekend on the golf course:
But as is often the case, the period between late May and August, the “death zone”, produced no new birds at all. I was reduced to photographing other things:
Fox cubEmperor Dragonfly, devouring a Small Copper butterflyI saw this Magpie, presumably feeding on ticks on this male Muntjac, on several occasions. Juvenile Green Woodpecker
The local Sparrowhawks had a successful season, fledging three young. Only when the first week of August arrived, and with it a returning Lesser Whitethroat, did the year list move on. An excellent January had been followed by a quiet spring and summer, but then came a truly astounding August. A number of Yellow Wagtails were heard and seen flying over. This year I made more efforts to record the flight calls of migrating birds:
This recording of a flyover Yellow Wagtail came out nicely. I like the way the flight call emerges from a background of calling Blue Tits and lawnmowers on the golf course, before the bird passes overhead, typical August birding here:
Nothing prepared me for the next three weeks. On 17th August I found a Corn Bunting on Warneford Meadow, the first Oxford city record since 1980 and the third new species for the Lye Valley in the year. It was quite a moment:
August 30th saw my first, and the Lye Valley’s second, Redstart. It very nearly stayed for a photo…
… and 2 Spotted Flycatchers on the same day:
Both these birds were eclipsed by a superb Pied Flycatcher, the second I’ve found in the Lye Valley area and found on my birthday and was the 81st species for the year, equalling my previous best annual total, so all the more sweet! This bird was one of only three seen in all of Oxfordshire during 2023:
A new Lye Valley area species total was set on September 16th when this Reed Bunting flew over calling. They all count!
The decline of House Martins across the county is very sad. This species has only been recorded in late September in recent years, as small flocks migrate south, passing low overhead in the first few hours of light. This year birds were recorded on September 20th and 23rd. A flyover Lesser Redpoll was species number 83 and was the last regular species that I needed… unless I got lucky with a Woodcock in the autumn. Then a couple of real surprises lifted the total to phenomenal heights. First, a Great White Egret circled over Churchill Meadow, followed a few days later by not one, but two, Great White Egrets and a Little Egret, amazing records for an area with no standing water:
Another flyover finch, the Lye Valley’s second Linnet, was seen and recorded flying south on October 23rd, species number 85:
There was also some decent Woodpigeon migration, with a peak movement of 920 birds in 90 minutes on 20th November:
I only had one target for November: Woodcock. Nearly all the previous Lye Valley records have been in this month, all four of them. On November 18th, in pouring rain, after much tramping through wooded areas, a Woodcock lifted from the ground under the trees by Boundary Brook stream, species number 86 for the year. And that was that. Or so I thought. I still visited regularly throughout December, but held out no realistic hope of adding another species. On December 27th, again in the rain at dawn, I splashed across a very wet Warneford Meadow and was astounded to flush a snipe, from just in front of me, on the edge of this wet patch:
In 573 previous patch visits, I have not flushed a snipe from Warneford Meadow. Even better, this bird looked tiny, rose silently, and flew low and direct into the long grass in the background. Surely this was a Jack Snipe? I walked towards the grass and the bird rose again, this time I got binocular views of it, and noted no obvious white on the trailing edge of the wing and two prominent gold scapular streaks. I thought it would land again, but at the last moment, it lifted off the meadow and flew north, at rooftop height, a stonking garden tick for somebody, if they were quick enough. An end-of-year surprise, species number 87 for the year, a cracking Jack Snipe!
What a year. I visited the Lye Valley area 153 times in 2023, recorded 87 bird species, three of which were new for the area (Firecrest, Water Rail and Corn Bunting). I walked some 800km, or 500 miles, and spent over 230 hours hours birding there. It has been a constant source of joy. Except for the Death Zone. Next year I will walk 500 miles more and will see what I can see. There is a song in there somewhere.
Whilst at work last week, I popped outside of the building to take some meter readings, only to find that there was a flock of 15 Ring-necked Parakeets in the tree at the back. A few local birders have suspected that the parakeet roost that held over 40 birds last winter in north Oxford, had moved into east Oxford. Ring-necked Parakeets seem like much more of an east Oxford kind of bird, so it felt appropriate to see them on this side of town. But where was the roost site?
I saw the flock of 15 birds fly over the building and leave to the east, but I lost sight of them behind the local houses. Intrigued, I kept an eye open at dusk on the following few evenings and discovered that a large flock of parakeets routinely gathered in an alder tree on Henley Avenue, visible from my workplace. There were a lot of birds. On December 12th, I counted at least 56 Ring-necked Parakeets in the top of the tree:
Birds arrived from about 15:30 in small groups and gradually worked their way up to the top of the tree, calling noisily. At 16:25, in near-darkness, the entire flock left and flew to roost in a couple of tall conifers in the back garden of a house on the corner of Florence Park Road, a short distance away. Both the pre-roost tree and the roosting trees are marked on this map:
I think this is the highest count of Ring-necked Parakeets in Oxfordshire to date. Birds have been breeding in the city for a few years and from the numbers present at this roost site, the local population is clearly doing well.
Despite being an introduced species, and one that may present some challenges for some native bird species, I always enjoy seeing and hearing parakeets. They are brightly-coloured and charismatic birds. The pictures below, taken in London, show the faint pink neckband on male birds that gives the species their other common name, Rose-ringed Parakeet. The tail is blue on the upper surface and yellow underneath and their grey-blue irises are also pretty cool:
